California Los Padres Section of the American Chemical Society

Please join us on the UCSB campus on Saturday March 9 for our annual pi day lecture on science and policy. This year we have the privilege of hosting Colonel Francisco Leija of the United States Army. Colonel Leija will discuss technology modernization in the United States military, the associated implications for the Department of Defense and university research and defense policy. Continue reading “2019 Pi Day Lecture: Defense Technology Modernization”

The cooling weather and the shorter days announce the arrival of fall. It is, therefore, time to gather for our Fall Luncheon. Professor Evan Miller of UC Berkeley returns to his home turf to introduce us to chemical biology and to discuss his breakthroughs in neuronal imaging. Continue reading “Fall Luncheon with Speaker Evan Miller”

You are cordially invited to attend the 2018 Western Regional Meetings (WRM) of the ACS. The WRM will be held at the Beckman Auditorium on the CalTech campus in Pasadena, California, on October 27, 2018.  This one-day “nano” meeting shares its theme with that of 2018 National Chemistry Week theme: “Chemistry is Out of this World!” The meeting features speakers from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and The Aerospace Corporation. Continue reading “2018 Western Regional Meeting”

World renowned expert on scientific and business communication Jean-Luc Doumont will visit UCSB soon, and we are happy to report that we have reserved seats for CALPACS members to see this incredibly popular speaker. Please use the link below to make your reservation via UCSB, and check the box labeled “California Los Padres American Chemical Society” to claim this benefit.

4-6 PM Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Topic: Getting the Message Across
Location: Corwin Pavilion, UCSB (Google Map)
Cost: Free
Click here for the reservation form

The ability to articulate ideas effectively is an invaluable asset for engineers, scientists, business people, and so many others. The written documents and the oral presentations these create are often the most visible outcome of their work, and are thus critical to the advancement of their projects and of their career.

In this talk, Jean-Luc Doumont, will discuss how to get your message across to stakeholders. Doumont, an engineer from the Louvain School of Engineering (PhD
in applied physics from Stanford University) is a popular invited speaker at top-notch universities and international conferences for what are now classic lectures (or related interactive workshops) on scientific communication, visual structure, pedagogy, statistical thinking, and other topics.

Philosophical honesty is the essential ingredient of policy making. The allocation of public and corporate resources must be made according to experimental results that are true and arguments that are logically sound. Otherwise, public trust is eroded and public and private resources are squandered. Please join us for an important lecture on the difficulties of maintaining philosophical integrity in a world of complex experiments and intricate arguments at the California Los Padres Section’s annual π day lecture series on science and policy. Pies will be served at 3:00 PM, with the talk commencing at 3:14 PM. We are privileged to host Professor Theodore Porter of UCLA’s Department of History.

Statistical Pi: Metaphysics and Manipulation of Numbers
Speaker: Theodore Porter, Ph.D.
Abstract
Statistics, in its mathematical form, was closely associated with the “error curve” or normal distribution, a formula that contains e as well as π, and that inspired wonderment for the great range of phenomena to which it applied. But it was originally a descriptive science of the state, and was bound up with a reverence for facts.  Now, perhaps more than ever, statistics and quantitative data are treated as almost synonymous with evidence.  So much faith creates an irresistible temptation to distort and manipulate, and it sometimes appears impossible to separate funny numbers from scrupulous ones. Have we created a crisis of numbers?

Date: Saturday, March 10, 2018
Time: 3 – 5 PM
Place:  Building 8 (Bioresource & Agricultural Engineering), Room 123, CalPoly San Luis Obispo. Click here for campus map.
Cost: Free
Your RSVP through the form below is requested to help event planning. Please click here to download the event flier..

Theodore Porter is a historian of science and Distinguished Professor of History at UCLA, where he has taught for about 25 years.  His research has  mainly focused on ideas and uses of quantification, measurement, data, and statistics, and especially they ways they link the natural sciences and medicine with social knowledge.  His books include The Rise of Statistical Thinking, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life; Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age, and (in a few months) Genetics in the Madhouse: The Unknown History of Human Heredity.

The end of the year is approaching rapidly, and the pandemonium for the holiday season will soon demand all of our times and attention. Please join us at Foley Wines on Saturday, December 2, 2017, to take a breather during the brief interregnum separating Continue reading “Fall Wine Tasting at Foley Estates”